dither
/ˈdɪðə//ˈdɪðɚ/
dither verb: to tremble, shake, or shiver.
Verb
dither (third-person singular simple present dithers, present participle dithering, simple past and past participle dithered)
- To tremble, shake, or shiver.
- Presently he came running out of the scullery, with the soapy water dripping from him, dithering with cold.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “chapter 8”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC
- To be uncertain or unable to make a decision; to vacillate, hesitate, or delay.
- The dithering Mr Singh of recent times may worry that his reform proposals are already too bold. The reforming Mr Singh of yore would see them as just the start.2012, The Economist, Sept. 22nd issue, "Indian Reform: At Last"
- To do something nervously.
- To use dot patterns in an image or graphic to simulate colors or shades not in the system palette.
- Look at how pixelly this wall texture is. You almost don't even notice the dithering when driving by quick. Up close though, it's real chunky.2023, Preston "Pretzel", 4:34 from the start, in Familiar and Unfamiliar Areas in Lego Island
- To intentionally add noise to a signal to remove artifacts caused by digitization.
Noun
dither (countable and uncountable, plural dithers)
- Trembling, shaking, or shivering.
- A state of nervous excitement.
- Everyone was in a dither; either in it or about to get in it or just climbing out of it. Naturally, the Madam was not in a dither. Dither was a foreign concept to her.2002, Thomas P. Glynn, A Child's Christmas In Chicago, page 59
- The state of being undecided; indecision; vacillation.
- A form of noise intentionally added to remove artifacts caused by digitization.
- The use of dot patterns in an image or graphic to approximate colors not available in the system palette.
dither meaning in Urdu, Malayalam, Kannada and Indonesian
dither in Urdu
- گھبراہٹ, جوش, کپکپاہٹ, لرزش, گھبرانا, کپکپانا
dither in Malayalam
- waver, hesitate, falter
- നിശ്ചയിക്കാൻ കഴിയാതാവുക, അറച്ചുനിൽക്കുക, മടിക്കുക, ശങ്കിക്കുക, ഞണുഞണുങ്ങുക, മടിച്ചുമടിച്ചു നിൽക്കുക
dither in Kannada
- ನಡುಗು, ಕಂಪಿಸು, ಅಲ್ಲಾಡಿಹೋಗು, ಹಿಂಜರಿ, ಡೋಲಾಯಮಾನವಾಗು, ಪಸಿಯಿಸು
dither in Indonesian
- to shiver or tremble
- menggigil
- (computing, graphics) to simulate a color digitally
- baur galat
Examples of dither in a sentence
- I was all of a dither when he asked me to marry him.
- It is a picture of dither, delay, unrealistic costings - and Department for Transport indecisiveness.
- This sort of a conversion gives a very dithered look to the picture.
Forms of dither
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | dithers |
| present participle | dithering |
| past participle | dithered |
| past | dithered |
| Noun | |
| plural | dithers |
Origin of dither
Variant of didder, from Middle English dideren (“to tremble”). Compare Middle English bididren, bididdren (“to seduce, deceive”), from Old English bedidrian, bedyderian (“to deceive, trick”). Alternatively, perhaps with expressive voicing from *titeren, from Proto-Germanic *titrōną. If so, then a doublet of teeter and cognate with Old High German zittarōn (German zittern) and Old Norse titra (Faroese titra, Icelandic titra). Alternatively an unrelated reduplicative onomatopoeia.
Words formed from dither
Phrases with dither
Words that rhyme with dither
- whither
- wither
- lither
- slither
- swither
- blither
- hither
- hither and thither
- nither
- thither
- zither
- mither
1 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about dither
- What does dither mean?
- Dither means to tremble, shake, or shiver.
- What is dither in Urdu?
- Dither in Urdu is گھبراہٹ, جوش, کپکپاہٹ. See Dither meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is dither?
- Dither can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce dither?
- Dither is pronounced /ˈdɪðə/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of dither?
- The past tense of dither is dithered.
Words near dither in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dither (page history and authors); dither (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dither (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); dither (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dither.wav, En-us-dither.oga.
Cite this entry: “dither.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dither. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.